Foreign currency hedging and firm productive efficiency

This study assesses whether foreign currency (FC) hedging improves firm productive efficiency. Using a unique sample of French non-financial listed firms belonging to the CAC All-Tradable index (former SBF250 index) index over the period 2004–2012, we employ a non-parametric method—data envelopment analysis—to estimate a firm’s efficiency frontier and analyze the role of financial hedging in addressing agency conflicts in France. The empirical results show that FC hedging has a significant positive effect on efficiency. This finding supports the theoretical view that hedging is a disciplinary device that can mitigate the owner–manager agency conflicts, leading to a better firm efficiency. The results are robust to a battery of sensitivity and endogeneity tests.